Animal

The word animal is actually comprised of two stems that have come down from the Lemurian tongue: ani, an abbreviated form of anima, meaning soul, or that which is infused with the breath of life, and mal, an abbreviated form of malus, meaning evil. Hence ani-mal refers to the animation, or the ensouling, of patterns of evil with the energies of the Holy Spirit.

The creation of animal life

Long ago scientists on Mu and Atlantis began to use the knowledge they had acquired over the forces of Nature to imprison Life rather than to set it free. In order to control the beings of earth, air, fire, and water—whose natural inclination to restore harmony in Nature interfered with their perverted practices—they locked the elementals in etheric patterns, using advanced methods of magnetism and mind control. These patterns, which resembled the variety of creations we now observe in the animal kingdom, were actually electronic forcefields which the scientists superimposed upon the elementals for a dual purpose: (1) to limit their expression of the Holy Spirit, and (2) to manipulate their energies and thereby manipulate the functions of Nature to their own ends.

Eventually the energies used to sustain these patterns coalesced around the elementals in succeeding stages of densification, until that which had begun as an electronic forcefield on the etheric plane became an idea on the mental plane, a sentient being on the emotional plane, and finally a physical entity on the earth plane. In this manner millions of imprisoned elementals became subject to the laws governing the evolution of animal life in this octave. Later through certain depredations of the human consciousness and the misuse of the sacred fire, other millions were also forced to enter the bodies of animals. As a result, the Christward evolution of the elemental kingdom—which should have taken place simultaneously with the Godward evolution of man’s consciousness—was detoured by an alternate evolution through the animal kingdom.

Group souls

Whereas each man has an individual soul, animals have what is called a group soul—an energy forcefield which focuses their group awareness of Life. Each of the species is a unit of evolution within the animal kingdom, and the combined awareness of these units makes up the total animal consciousness on the planetary body. It is the group soul that produces the herd instinct—the gregariousness of cattle, the formation of birds in flight, or the movement of a school of fish—and the migratory patterns of many of the species.

Whether there are ten or ten thousand kine on the hillsides, the group soul of each species continues to evolve; for its evolution is based not on numbers, but on experience and the evolvement of habit patterns which are subject to man's own expansion of the Christ consciousness. For animal life, strange as it may seem, is totally dominated by man’s awareness of God. Animals can rise no higher than man's highest thoughts and feelings and actions, and they can fall no lower than his lowest. Animals have no free will of their own, but reflect the free will of man; for the dominion over the animal kingdom which God gave to man was the dominion of his Christ consciousness over the group soul.

Elementals and animal life

Elementals that have been evolving for thousands of years through the group soul of animals have come to identify with their animal bodies and with their animal consciousness just as the souls of men have come to identify with the human form and consciousness. Thus the elemental that is tied to the body of a horse, a cow, a goat, a dog, or a cat thinks that he is that animal. He has lost his awareness of himself both as an elemental and as an elemental inhabiting an animal body. The domestic animal who exhibits more than ordinary talent and devotion is no doubt an imprisoned elemental who readily takes his place as a member of the family. People would no more kill their pets than they would their own children, because they are more than animal forms; they are elementals tied to animal forms—worthy of being called the friend of man.

Because the animal form is an imperfect matrix for the integration of the virtues of the Christ in the elemental kingdom and because the brain and nervous system are inadequate vehicles for their Self-conscious awareness of the Holy Spirit, the elementals are entirely dependent upon man’s consciousness as they evolve from a state of limitation back to the unlimited awareness of Life they once knew. And this spiritual evolution is a requirement of the Law that must be met before they can attain immortality.

Freedom for elementals

The only way man can free and raise elementals that have been tied to animal forms is for man to free and raise his own consciousness to the level of the Christ; for then the elementals over which he was given dominion will identify with the Christ in man rather than with man's carnal consciousness, which binds the elemental to the group soul of the species. And when the elemental no longer identifies with the animal, he will no longer require the body of the animal in order to evolve: he will break the bonds of his confinement and commence his God Self-awareness—as a sylph in the form of a sylph, as an undine in the form of an undine, as a gnome in the form of a gnome, or as a salamander in the form of a salamander.

When all the elementals have been freed from the animal consciousness and from the animal form, they will assimilate the net gain of their experience in the animal kingdom and they will be given the same right to earn their immortality which man now enjoys. If man identifies with the spirit of love, courage, loyalty, obedience, and faith which the elementals express, rather than allowing his attachment to be confined to the animal form, he will rejoice to see those qualities immortalized through the perfected forms of the elementals, who, like man, originated in God. Just as man fears not to surrender the weight of his terrestrial body for the glory of his celestial body, so he should not lament the passing of the old order of elemental life for the new.

Sources

Mark L. Prophet and Elizabeth Clare Prophet, The Path of the Higher Self, volume 1 of the Climb the Highest Mountain® series, chapter 7.